


Snapshots of Starlight

by binarystarkillers



Series: Timkon Month 2019 [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: I wrote this because of exam stress, Idiots in Love, Kon is gay, M/M, Prompt: Under the Stars, Sleepless nights, Stolen Moments, This is for timkon week on Twitter, Trans Tim Drake, i don't know how to tag, tim is a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 15:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19065862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarystarkillers/pseuds/binarystarkillers
Summary: “Need a lift?” he asks, and as he grins crookedly down at Tim, his silhouette is outlined in starlight.





	Snapshots of Starlight

The first time Tim sees Kon, he’s flying. It’s a dark night, the midnight sky streaked with periwinkle, and Tim can’t help but stare awe-struck at the horizon, so drastically different from Gotham’s. 

He’d grown accustomed to the city’s sky, constellations marked by city-scapes instead of stars, by smoke instead of clouds. The Kansas sky is clear and serene, and Tim can hear tens of birds singing, melodies overlapping. It couldn’t be more different from Gotham with it’s grime and symphony of car alarms and revving engines. 

The air itself is even different; Tim can smell grass and flowers and scents other than cigarette smoke and car fumes. 

Frankly, it’s the most beautiful thing Tim has ever seen, so it only makes sense that the boy flying through it is beautiful, as well.

Of course, he spots him, and immediately heads down to the path Tim is standing on. He glides down to Tim, stopping only a couple of feet away from the ground, enough that Tim has to look up to him to make eye contact, but not enough that he wouldn’t be able to hear him if he spoke softly. 

“Robin, right?” he asks, voice cutting through the delicate silence of the night like a knife. “Don’t you have mass murderers to beat up, or something? I didn’t know you Bats could survive somewhere where people can walk around without worrying about being stabbed.”

Tim raises an eyebrow, carefully biting back a scathing remark. It’s obvious that Superboy is feigning his disinterest - his arms are crossed, but he’s gripping the opposite arms too tightly for it to come across as careless. His eyes are slightly narrowed behind his sunglasses, and Tim can see the tension throughout his entire body, squaring for a fight if need be. Sure, it might persuade a passing person, or a petty, low-grade, criminal, but Tim was trained by Batman, for god’s sake. The other teen would have to try harder.

“I figured you would want to know that a, shall we say, person who has an, um, vested interest in you is planning on paying you a visit,” he says, hoping Superboy would get the hint. “He and his… associates have been paying Gotham’s inhabitants a couple of visits lately, and these visits rarely seem to be going well.” 

Superboy cocks an eyebrow, sunglasses sliding down his nose as he scoffs. “If it’s in Gotham, shouldn’t that be a problem for you? We all know how well your almighty leader takes to metas, seeing as he sent his little pet to deliver a message instead of telling us himself.”

For the second time in their conversation, Tim finds himself carefully controlling himself to stop from blurting out something that he would regret. He isn’t Jason, after all - he knows better than to jump into things headfirst. As that is, he takes a second to mull over his words before speaking again.

“We’ve got that part of it covered, but thank you for your concern,” he replies back, his tone meticulously pleasant. “I’m just here to ask if you want any backup during your family reunion.”

For a long moment, Superboy just stares at him in shock, mouth dropping open slightly. Tim allows one side of his mouth to tilt upwards, just the smallest amount, and Superboy snaps his jaw shut, staring at Tim appraisingly. For the second time, the two teens fall into silence as Superboy digests Tim’s offer. However, he must see something in Tim that agrees with him, because he nods at him. 

“Need a lift?” he asks, and as he grins crookedly down at Tim, his silhouette is outlined in starlight.

*** 

Months pass, and Superboy and Robin begin to transform into Kon and Rob. Their relationship switches somewhere along the way from begrudging allies to tentative friends, and it’s all right. Nice, even. They don’t really spend any time alone, but Tim begins to show up to the Titans’ Saturday movie nights, and Kon knows to put half a teaspoon of sugar in his coffee each morning. 

They’re not best friends; neither of them would go to the other for advice or if something was bothering them. But, they’ve reached a cautious middle ground, and Tim is okay with that.

But the thing is, sometimes Kon has trouble sleeping. There’s no reason for it, but he’ll just wake up in the middle of the night. Normally he just lies down, impatiently waiting for sleep to overtake him again, but he’ll occasionally get the impulse to… do something. He’ll climb out of bed, and sit in the lounge with it’s windows, and he’ll crack open one and breathe in the night air, content to stay in the building and just zone out for a bit. 

He sure as shit isn’t one for meditation or any shit like that - and he’d beat the shit out of anyone who implied otherwise - but sometimes it’s nice for him to just let his thoughts wander as the birds sing outside. 

That’s exactly what he does, throwing himself unceremoniously into an armchair as he cracks open a window. He settles into the comfortable rhythm of sleepless nights as his thoughts begin to wander back to Kansas and his family. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but he’s so far away that someone could have called his name and he probably wouldn’t have noticed. That’s, of course, why it takes him so long to realize that he isn’t alone anymore. 

Robin isn’t in the same room as him; there’s no way that he would let Kon see him like this, but, with Kryptonian hearing, there’s not much that Kon doesn’t notice. From far away, as if from the other end of a tunnel, he hears quick, panicked breathing, and he blinks, returning to his body as he hears what sounds suspiciously like a cut-off sob coming from the kitchen. As quietly as he can, he stands up, wincing at the protesting squeak the antique armchair gives. 

Tim is sitting on the kitchen floor when Kon comes in, still in uniform with his knees drawn up to his chest. He means to stand up, brush off whatever was bothering him and school his expression into some semblance of normalcy, but he can’t do anything at that point except shake, choking on the fear that wraps itself around him, inside him. 

He’s dying, he has to be, this can’t be happening, the team can’t see this, oh god, not now, not in front of Kon, he can’t do this, oh no, Kon can’t see this, he can’t, he can’t, he can’t he can’t ohmygodhecan’ttheycan’tseehimlikethistheycan’tseehimlikethistheycan’t- 

“Rob! Robin, I need you to listen to me.”

Robin’s breathing doesn’t calm down, and Kon takes desperate measures. Offering a hand to the teen, Kon helps him to the elevator, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and helping him walk before punching the roof button as fast as he can, because let’s face it, Robin isn’t okay right now and he has no fucking idea how to deal with this. Thankfully, being outside seems to help Rob, and after a few minutes, his breathing begins to ease out, the shaking reducing to a bone-deep tremor and his shaky breathing the only sound in the night. 

“Are you okay?” Kon tentatively asks after a few minutes, mentally smacking himself for asking such a stupid question.

Tim nods, a wave of embarrassment taking over, the first thing he’d felt since the overwhelming panic. “I should be. I’m… I’m really sorry.”

Kon’s eyes widen, honestly surprised. “Dude, you don’t have shit to apologize for,” he replies, and Tim turns to look at him, pathetically grateful. 

“Wanna tell me about it?” Kon says a few moments later, when it becomes apparent that Robin won’t say anything.

Tim bites his lip, for once not worrying about his body language. There isn’t much point, he reasons, as Kon had already seen him having a panic attack on the kitchen floor. “I’ve just got a lot on my plate,” he says, unsure of how much to tell the other boy. Kon looks at him, and nods sadly, as if he somehow understood what Tim was saying without him actually saying it. Kon’s arm is still around his shoulders, and the subtle scent of wood-smoke and warm leather that seems to follow the boy around is more comforting than he’d admit.

Later that night, Robin will tell him everything, and Kon will listen as his voice begins to crack with the effort of holding back tears. Kon will listen as Rob talks about his parents and the things they say, about how he feels more at home with Batman and Nightwing than he ever does at home, about balancing school and Robin, about how afraid he is that he’s going to mess up being Robin, about homework and PTSD and testosterone shots. Kon will listen to him until his voice gives out from talking so much, and the sun is beginning to creep in through the dark sky. 

But that’s later. For now, Tim is content to sit on the rooftop in silence, Kon’s arm around his shoulder, concrete digging into his knees through his costume, and the silver moonlight lighting up their skin with it’s cold luminescence. 

***

Kon doesn’t like Gotham. Not just because he knows he’s not welcome, as a meta, but he also just can’t stand the city, as a country boy. Don’t get him wrong, living in rural Kansas drives Kon up the wall most of the time, but he kind of likes smelling the trees and seeing the stars when he leaves the house. Gotham is disgusting in comparison - Kon can smell the sewage from the vents in the street, and with his heightened senses, he can hear people throwing up and screaming every couple of blocks. 

It’s a cesspool of crime, really. From taking a few minutes in the city, it quickly becomes clear to him why there’s so many Bat-people, as well as why they’re all as jaded as they are. Batman is probably doing him a favour by telling him to stay out of Gotham, if he’s honest.

But, Robin asked him for his help. And he’s not going to chicken out on a friend just because he doesn’t like the gross-ass place he lives in. He’s doing this for a good reason. 

 

But seriously, Gotham is gross, and he tells Robin so as soon as he sees him. Robin, for his credit, just rolls his eyes behind his mask, but he can’t stop the wry twist of his smile. “C’mon, Superboy,” he replies, his voice adopting that teasing lilt that seems to only come out around Conner. “If I hadn’t invited you out here, then you’d still be playing video games. Don’t deny it.” 

Kon opens his mouth to protest, before thinking better of it and shutting it. Robin has a point, damn him. “At least you’re better company than Superman,” he says, and Robin honest-to-god laughs, a throaty noise that cuts through the hubbub of Gotham, tipping his head back as he crows. 

They start to get to work soon after, setting up for the job. There’s a drug ring that Robin thinks will meet up at an abandoned warehouse tonight; Batman is injured, and Nightwing is away on a mission. 

Honestly, Kon isn’t sure why Robin called him, and not Spoiler or Batwoman or someone, but if he’s honest, he isn’t complaining. There’s something mesmerizing about watching Robin in his natural habitat - there’s an ease, an effortless grace that isn’t around when they’re with the Titans. 

He’s not more relaxed, per say, but he’s in his element, Conner thinks. This is his home, this is his turf - he probably knows these rooftops like he knows his own hand. Here, people respect Robin, and his natural cunning, instigative nature perfectly contrasts the gritty chaos of Gotham.

Not that Conner is thinking anything positive about Gotham. No. There’s no way in hell he’s ever going to warm up to a city that has so much air pollution that you can’t even see the moon. He just thinks that it’s… nice to see Robin so comfortable. He’s more confident, he notices. Robin is a great leader, but the Titans all know that he doesn’t know that. He overcompensates, Cassie says. He’s worried that the team doesn’t respect him, and it makes him close himself off from them until he becomes the epitome of “all work and no play.”

Looking at Robin under the fluorescent light from the hazy Gotham sky, Kon decides that Cassie had a point. Robin is fantastic with the Titans, but in Gotham? He’s, well - breathtaking.

“Superboy. I know you don’t go on stakeouts often, but you know you’re supposed to watch the warehouse, not me, right?”

Against his will, Conner blushes, wordlessly turning his attention back to the warehouse. The two lapse into silence again, and he finds himself thinking that they seem to spend a lot of time sitting in silence under a night sky. 

This time is better, though. The silence is comfortable, not so much a lack of something to say, but the absence of the impulse to fill silence with words. There still aren’t any stars in Gotham, but Kon is happy to sit in silence with Robin, listening to his heartbeat and the roar of traffic in the background.

Eventually, he does notice something, and he and Robin spring into action, taking out the dealers with a practiced ease. It’s a simple mission, really - they’re woefully unprepared, and besides, him and Robin make a pretty kickass team, in his opinion. Kon, on habit, waits for the police to arrive, but Robin snickers at him. “You’re in Gotham now, young man,” he jokes in a truly awful Batman voice, and gracefully exits onto the roof, not waiting for Conner to keep up. 

“That was terrible!” He calls after Robin, leaping into the air, and he chases Robin’s laugh across the night. 

Eventually, Robin stops, crouching at the edge of a ruined apartment building at the outskirts of the city. “Nice pad,” Kon says. “This your place?”

Robin flips him off, dropping into what once was a room. Half of the wall is gone, a gaping hole in its place. There’s empty chip wrappers and soda cans all over the floor, which Robin smiles ruefully at before taking a seat at the edge of the hole, legs dangling. 

“It’s safe here,” he says. “Nobody comes here anymore, so Nightwing, Red Hood, and I sometimes come here after patrol.” 

Kon frowns, confused, but takes a seat next to Robin. “So… not that I’m not flattered that you showed me your super secret hideout or anything, but why am I here?” 

Robin actually blushes, his hands twisting nervously in his lap. “I… uh. You know I trust you, right?”

“I mean, yeah. We’re friends, aren’t we, Rob?” He asks, teasing.

“Tim.”

“I - what?”

Robin sucks in a deep breath, clearly nervous. “My - my name. Tim. Well, Timothy, but Tim.”

At this point, Kon thinks his eyes might fall out of his head. “Tim?” He repeats, dumbfounded. 

“Yeah. Timothy Jackson Drake,” Robin - Tim - replies. And, as if he hasn’t dropped enough bombshells onto Kon, because holy shit he knows Robin’s name, probably Batman and Nightwing’s, too, Tim reaches up with shaking hands, and peels his mask off.

Tim’s eyes are really blue. They’re not bright blue, like Kon’s are, almost unnaturally so; they’re the colour of deep water. They’re the colour of the night sky in Kansas, when the sky is clear and you can see the stars. 

They’re Conner’s favourite colour.

Conner is definitely staring, because Tim’s wide eyes are growing more anxious by the second, and he blurts out the first thing that pops into his head. 

“Dude. You have the whitest name.” 

You can’t see the stars in Gotham. But that’s okay, because Tim’s smile outshines every one. 

***

Somewhere along the way, things have gone horribly wrong. 

This was supposed to be a simple mission. Some robbers were holding a bank hostage, and the Titans had gotten word of a bomb threat. Go in, save the hostages, defuse the bomb. They’d done more dangerous things than that hundreds of times. But somehow, things had gone wrong, and Kon is standing at the edge of what once was a bank, screaming Robin’s name as Bart zips around behind him, desperately trying to find him. 

“Get the civilians to safety,” Gar tells someone, far away. Unimportant. How could anyone be worrying about anything other than the fact that Tim is missing, Tim is buried under the rubble and they need to find him before they find his corpse, and oh god, what if he’s already -?

Kon throws a piece of concrete to the side, grunting in pain. He thinks he hears Cassie calling after him to be careful, he’s hurt, but he ignores her. The only thing that matters is finding Tim. He has to find Tim. He has to… 

The ground rushes up to meet him, and it all goes black. 

When Conner comes to, the first thing he sees is Cassie’s worried face. They’re still at the site, he notices, but night has fallen. “Wonder Girl,” he croaks, and she immediately helps him sit up. “Where’s Robin?”

Cassie’s face crumples, and that tells him everything he needs to know. “We… we couldn’t find him,” she chokes out, trying desperately to keep it together. “We looked for hours, but - but I think we should go back. If he’s still,” she takes a shuddering breath, “here, he’s probably…”

Conner hangs his head, unable to look his friend in the eyes. He doesn’t have anything to say - how can he? - so he just stares at the dusty ground, watching as the gentle breeze stirs patterns. It’s quiet, too quiet, not anything like the comfortable nights he’s spent in Tim’s company in the tower - this quiet is horrible, suffocating, spilling over him and seeping into his skin until it’s all he can feel. 

And then quietly, so quietly that he almost misses it, he hears it. A quiet tempo that accompanied so many of his favourite memories, a steady beat that makes him think of movie marathons at four in the morning and the smell of coffee, that somewhere along the line became his favourite song.

“Wonder Girl,” he gasps, grabbing a piece of concrete and pushing himself off of it. “Wonder Girl, Robin is alive.”

Cassie stares at him for a long moment, her eyes bright with unshed tears, as if deciding whether he’s grief-stricken and delusional or not. “Cassie,” he tries again, “I can hear his heartbeat.”

“Where. Where is he,” Cassie replies. It doesn’t sound like a question - her voice is tight, controlled; she’s clearly been learning from their leader. Kon shuts his eyes, focusing solely on Tim’s heartbeat, before pointing at a pile of rubble. “Under there,” he says, and Cassie is already on the move. “He’s hurt, but he’s - he’s okay.” 

Cassie gets to the pile first, and by the time Kon is able to gingerly drop onto the ground, she’s already torn apart half of the concrete obscuring Tim, desperation obvious in her rough, angry movements, tears sliding down her cheeks. Even injured, Kon is useful in this type of work, and it’s not long before they can see the red and green of Robin’s uniform. 

He’s unconscious, and he looks almost peaceful. He’s tattered - there’s blood matting his hair from a gash across his forehead, his uniform is ripped around his right knee, exposing a bloody mess beneath, and his mask is long gone. 

“Tim!” he bursts out, forgetting about Cassie and jumping down to meet him. Forgetting about everything, really, except the unconscious teen. His skin is warm under Kon’s hand, and he can’t be too badly hurt, because after just a few seconds, his eyes begin to flutter open.

“Kon?” he whispers, and if tears begin to swell in Conner’s eyes, neither of them mention it as Kon pulls him into a tight hug. “You’re alive,” he whispers into Tim’s hair. “You’re really alive.”

Tim doesn’t say anything, just hums quietly as he tentatively wraps his arms around his friend. From far away, he thinks he can hear Cassie’s voice, but the only thing that matters to him right now is right here, shaking slightly as he hugs him. 

“We thought you were dead,” Kon says when he finally lets go of him. “We couldn’t find you anywhere, and Bart was on his way to find Batman, and I thought you were dead, you noble, self-sacrificing asshole!” He punctuates the last part with a light punch to Tim’s shoulder with each word.

“I was only missing for a couple of hours. You miss me that much, Superboy?” 

Before Kon can think better of it, he replies. “Yeah.”

He can hear Tim’s heart rate pick up, but the other teen doesn’t say anything until:

“You lost your sunglasses.”

“I lost my -” he drops off, astonished. And then, for no reason, both of them begin to laugh, an exhausted, raw sound that bounces off the walls of the ruined bank. 

“You’re impossible,” he tells Tim, and he just shrugs, a self-deprecating motion. Tim smiles at him, and - 

And his eyes are so blue.

And his smile lights up the Gotham sky.

And there’s an open sky above them.

They kiss, and stars burn under their skin.

**Author's Note:**

> Day one of Timkon month is done! This is for yngjustice's Timkon month on Twitter, which you should all check out! Also, a big thanks to @ace2013 for beta'ing this at such short notice. :)


End file.
